Anatomy of a Wound
by Ash Road
Summary: 50 truths about the life of a shinobi. Ensemble cast, gen and het. Complete.


This is me, messing around with Kishimoto's characters. An experiment of sorts, playing around with style and perspective. Written in present tense, with blatant misuse of semicolons and italics, accompanied by some fabulous run-on sentences. Warnings for implied sex, violence, and language. Themes swiped from 50 themes on lj. Let me know what you think, and enjoy!

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1. cinnamon

The curve of Temari's neck smells like dusty cinnamon and the arid harshness of the desert, and for the first time since he left on a suicide mission six days ago, Shikamaru remembers how to breathe.

2. bittersweet

Sakura's kisses are bittersweet, the taste of her skin almost eclipsed by the salt of her tears and the iron tang of blood.

3. technology

Konoha's Yellow Flash is technologically impaired; it takes two hours and the intervention of his genin team – who are _laughing _at him, little traitors – for the flustered chuunin to show him how to work the redesigned radio transmitters.

4. "what was that for"

Seventy-five percent of the time, Naruto still has no idea why Sakura has just hit him.

5. rumors

Walking the streets of the village, an ANBU detail trailing him, Sasuke wonders how Naruto survived a childhood of hostile faces and angry whispers and still learned how to smile.

6. sacrifice

Tsunade grieves for Jiraiya as a woman grieves for a lover, as a child grieves for a friend; the Godaime Hokage grieves for Jiraiya as a leader grieves for a subordinate sacrificed on the altar of peace.

7. reunion

Sasuke's welcome home is a Rasen Shuriken to the chest, courtesy of Naruto, a Raikiri in his left shoulder, courtesy of Kakashi, and the green glow of healing chakra _everywhere_, courtesy of Sakura - oh, and a chakra-infused fist to the face, also courtesy of Sakura.

8. sword and shield

A wave of relief floods through Gaara when he realizes that his power over the sands, which has been both a protection and a torment all his life, has not vanished along with the giggling madness of Shukaku at the hands of Akatsuki.

9. my happy ending

The last thing Itachi sees before he dies is the face of his little brother.

10. windows of the soul

It is the nature of the sighted to be blind to truth of their own faults; nowhere is this more true than within the walls of Hyuuga.

11. served your purpose

Those in Root learn early on that a tool is only worthwhile so long as it is effective.

12. forever ours

Three years and one dead brother after he abandons them, Sasuke realizes that the other members of Team Seven still have no intention of letting him go.

13. introspection

_Shut up and listen, you stupid furball, and maybe I'll let you out of that cage._

14. "if only…"

Jiraiya finds her in front of the Memorial Stone and stands silently at her shoulder, eyes tracing names they both know by heart before something _cracksbreaksshatters_ in her chest, and she kisses him to push away the pain.

15. lost

He had the most powerful eyes in the world, yet still, Madara didn't see this coming – now he lies, uncomprehending, while vulpine laughter echoes in the blackness around him as he bleeds into death.

16. words of the heart

_You're a fucking idiot_, then _well you're still a bastard,_ followed by _both of you SHUT UP_, and oh yes, Kakashi cannot articulate how good it is to have this back.

17. inspiration

"Tsunade-hime's chest," Jiraiya informs Naruto solemnly, "is a sight worth almost dying to see."

18. reaching

"See how that's my face and not yours on the Hokage monument," she snaps at the boy she will name her successor, "yeah, that means _you_ still answer to _me,_ damned brat!"

19. chaos

It only takes six hours for Konoha to burn to the ground.

20. holiday

Naruto nearly dies from happiness when old man Teuchi declares a day of free, all-you-can-eat ramen in honor of his best customer's new title – "Rokudaime Hokage."

21. release

Forty-six enemy ninja watch nervously as the seal on Sakura's forehead dissolves in a flash of purple light, and the three fatal stab wounds she just received vanish as if they never happened at all; however, it's not until stuff starts to _fucking explode_ with nothing more than a flick of her fingers that they know they are in deep, deep shit.

22. pain relief

Tsunade offers to mend his broken ribs, blithely ignoring Jiraiya's protests that a healing would "mean more if you hadn't broken them in the first place!"

23. begging

He knows what ANBU missions can do to you, knows that they rip you apart from the inside out, so when Anko breaks into his apartment in the middle of the night and presses her still bruised and bleeding body against his, he kisses her back and doesn't say no to the silent question in her eyes.

24. can't deny it

Fear skitters through her as his droll voice explains his next mission, but his eyes are hard and her fingers reach to tangle in his hair of their own accord, and Temari can't pretend that she'll find it in herself to forgive him if he dies.

25. unsweetened tea

Itachi disappears in a murder of crows, watching as Sasuke's eyes burn with hatred: he tries not think about the look on his little brother's face when he dropped kaa-chan's favorite cup and spilled scalding tea all over himself, quieting only in the shelter of his aniki's embrace.

26. lyrics

She's kept every single poem he's ever written her, because she won't do him the disservice of letting herself pretend that she doesn't love him.

27. secret art

When Hinata comes back from her first solo mission with haunted eyes and reeking of fear and sex, Kiba swallows down the bile that rises in that back of his throat and lets her pretend that nothing important happened.

28. justice

Yuugao kills fifteen men with Hayate's blade during the second invasion of Konoha, and knows that with every flash of the steel in her hands she is defending what her lover died to protect.

29. "wait a minute"

Gamabunta sighs and blows smoke in Naruto's face when he asks about the Fourth, and the angry jinchuuriki stumbles back, coughing; the gravelly, boom of his voice saying "He was a kind-hearted, idiot genius," calms the kid down, and with Shima and Fukusaku at his side, the Toad Boss tells Minato's legacy what his father was like.

30. dry your tears

"Stop crying," Kurenai yells when she finds Ino kneeling in front of the Memorial Stone, naming herself a hypocrite as tears start to roll down her own cheeks when the blonde kunoichi pulls her into an embrace of shared grief, Asuma's name blurring before her eyes.

31. desolation

"Sasuke" and "Itachi" died with the rest of the Uchiha clan that night: only their ghosts remain.

32. school uniforms

The Academy students so eager to earn their hitai-ate do not understand what they will one day be forced to sacrifice in the name of that stylized leaf, etched in unforgiving metal.

33. cross-dressing

It takes a supreme effort of will on Neji's part to ignore Tenten's poorly disguised snickering when he steps out wearing the only article of clothing, between the four of them and their client, that will fit him now that his customary garments are shredded and his pack stolen in the confusion of the bandit attack – a red kimono, patterned with, much to his horror, what Lee and Gai deem "most Youthful!" pink and white daisies.

34. seven deadly sins

"_More," she growls "moremoremore," her voice breaking off into a keening whine as he complies, pushing harderfasterfurther into her welcoming body, and her nails are clawing scored furrows into the skin of his back and he is panting against her cheek breath gonegonegone when she shifts her leg and rolls her hip justlikethat, lost in the slick wet heat pooling between them eyes filled with the purple of fang tattoos and then oh they are breakingshatteringexploding, tumbling back towards reality and a war where they stand as enemies_ – and just like that, Inuzuka Hana becomes another sin, another person to damn Uchiha Itachi.

35. "why me…?"

Hanabi stares as the curse seal on Neji's forehead, watches her sister try to prove herself in eyes of her clan, and feels her chest constrict when she wonders at the price of being Hyuuga.

36. "never give up!"

Kabuto's reflection narrows slit golden eyes at him in the mirror, and not for the first time, he can feel Orochimaru's seething rage and single-minded purpose as the Sannin slowly steals himself another body.

37. fortune

Two days after Shikamaru is captured, the remaining members of Team Ten slip away from camp under the cover of darkness, disobeying direct orders as they head for the enemy lines, because they refuse to abandon the glue that holds them together, the "Shika" between their "Ino" and "Chou" to the fortunes of war.

38. sensations

It takes Shino nearly seven months to grow accustomed to the strange feel of his allies burrowing beneath his skin.

39. black and white

Hiashi scorns the Uchiha, who see the world through a wash of bloody red, but does not acknowledge that since his brother died, he has forgotten how to see in shades of gray.

40. mail

When Naruto returns, she hugs him and then hits him with a beautiful right hook, because three years is a long time and would it have killed him to send her a goddamned letter?

41. boundless energy

Gai bursts into his apartment in a flurry of green, issuing a challenge – something about youth, and springtime, and a thumb wrestling rematch – but Kakashi's sleep fogged brain stopped processing this when he realized it is three in the morning, and _Gai is in his apartment _and _the sun has not even risen yet _and _just, no._

42. walk out

Shizune left without saying goodbye, all those years ago, to walk a path that was not her own, and Genma still hasn't made peace with that.

43. realization

She has the sharpest senses in her clan, but it is the mother in Tsume, not the tracker, that knows the instant Hana comes home how her daughter's still beating heart has been ripped from her chest, given away to a man with red eyes.

44. private stash

Tenten's been forging her own weapons since she was ten.

45. games

Shikamaru still hasn't beaten his father in a game of shogi, and something in Shikaku's sharp, assessing gaze tells him that he still has a long way to go.

46. cloud 9

Konan gave Naruto paper flowers as a gesture of peace, an olive branch that won't wither and die, but it takes Konoha a long time to stop tensing at the sight of red clouds on black cloaks.

47. déjà vu

History was Sakura's favorite subject at the Academy; she knows all there is to know about the Sannin, and her mentor doesn't hide that old hurt as well as she thinks she does, and Sakura _is not_ going to let history repeat itself with Team Seven.

48. "say something"

The blood won't come off her hands, and she stands at the sink scrubbing her skin raw until Jiraiya pulls her away and lets her cry against his chest, holding her close, the low murmur of his voice soothing her into sleep – "Oh, Hime. You can stop now, Hime, you're clean. Shh, Hime, I've got you. I've got you."

49. protection

Every mission, every sacrifice, every kill, happens because those with the Will of Fire hope that the next generation will survive long enough to find the path to peace.

50. hidden among us

At the end of the day they are shinobi, hidden away in the leaves.


End file.
